Sand But No Son

Markides is a sociology professor at the University of Maine, and his research
has led him to conclusions that are rare among social-science academics. He
has come to believe that we are surrounded by unseen spiritual realities, and
that it is possible, through repentance and prayer, to encounter and be transformed
by them.

He has come to believe in miracles, and that this world is not the result
of blind chance. In many ways he is rediscovering the Greek Orthodoxy he was
exposed to in childhood, and finding it full of wonders.

Parallel Path

Markides’s previous book, The Mountain of Silence (2001),
was read eagerly by those interested in Orthodox spirituality, chiefly because
he had faithfully transcribed taped conversations with a monk trained on Mt.
Athos, Father Maximos. Though Markides himself seemed not wholly on board with
small- o orthodox Christianity, he was obviously fascinated by it,
and Fr. Maximos’s verbatim teachings were worth more than the price of
admission.

That’s why fans of Mountain of Silence have been looking
forward to Gifts of the Desert. But a friend who read an early copy
told me, “Somehow, it’s pretty dry.” It took me half the
book to figure out what’s causing this dryness: It’s that Jesus
is missing.

The person who says, “I like Jesus, but I have no use for the church” is
a cliché, but Markides is the opposite. He stands in awe of the Church
(which he always calls by the Greek term, Ecclesia), but has no interest
in Jesus. He is convinced that spiritual transformation, of the kind envisioned
in Buddhism, Yoga, and Zen, is possible, and that a parallel path has been
preserved in the traditions of Eastern Christianity. I happen to agree with
that, and am grateful to have him as a teammate in the project of bringing
knowledge of this “Forgotten Path” to Western readers.

But one of Markides’s chief concerns is to make the Orthodox way of
spiritual transformation available to those who “are not necessarily
Orthodox or even Christian.” Follow his train of thought as he presents
his five “assumptions” to Fr. Maximos: (1) “The world of
the five senses is not the only world there is”; (2) “Other [hierarchically
arranged] worlds exist that interpenetrate our own”; (3) “[T]he
various worlds are in ongoing communication with one another”; (4) “[W]e
as a species and as individuals are never alone”; and (5) “[T]he
world is utterly meaningful.” An orthodox Christian might scratch his
head, but conclude that, if he means what you think he means, you’re
probably both on the same track.

Divisive Jesus

However, Markides expands on his third point like this: “Some members
of our own reality make contact with these higher realms. We have called them
shamans, psychics, prophets, saints, and so on. Their reports of what they
find always are couched within the language of the culture that these gifted
people happen to live in. Therefore, knowledge of these higher worlds is always
colored, filtered, and distorted in varying degrees through the cultural constructions
of time and place. Even living saints are subjected to this law.”

My guess is that this is the reason why Gifts of the Desert always
presents the goal of the spiritual life as simply union with “God”:
It would be divisive to bring in Jesus, as well as unnecessary. Jesus is just
one more piece of culturally induced baggage.

So we have the topsy-turvy experience of reading fervent endorsements of
the Church, Tradition, ascetic practices, miracles, and even forthright confrontation
with those itchiest of topics, sin and repentance—yet the goal of our
pilgrimage is not the Incarnate and Resurrected Friend who has erupted into
so many lives, but something much more circumspect and vague. Humans are constructed
to respond to other persons in a wholly different way than we do to theories
or mystical conjectures. Flannery O’Connor’s “Holy Church
of Christ Without Christ” has an inherent problem.

It’s a head-scratcher, all right. While scoring a notch below Mountain
of Silence in terms of meaty content, Gifts of the Desert still
does a diligent job of expounding the way of theosis. But at the
end of 300-plus pages, it seems like a desert indeed.

Frederica Mathewes-Green is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and a contributor to the Christian Millennial History Project multi-volume series. Her books include At the Corner of East and Now (Putnam), The Illumined Heart (Paraclete Press), and The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer (Paraclete Press). She lives in Linthicum, Maryland, with her husband Fr. Gregory, pastor of Holy Cross Orthodox Church. They have three children and three grandchildren.

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